The following views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the prevailing order, who prostrate to their naked kings, tailor the seams of funeral shrouds on foreign shores, but shed no tears for the dead of the endless list of informal wars – the justification for will be spelled out coming soon to a screen near you. I’m feeling less hopeful and so much less human as my days are reduced to little more than settling for revenge and wondering whatever happened to the kid that pledged “first do no harm”? Chalk it up to an overdeveloped sense of unbridled vengeance. Somebody fed me too much New Hope for breakfast, cuz as the empire preemptively strikes back (again) and the voice of Luke’s father baritones this is CNN I recall Arab kids slaughtered reduced to “sand-niggers” and “rag-heads.” And now I’m expected to mourn dead Americans? The executioner’s willing citizens? I’m so sorry and I’m trying to think it through, but when the chickens came home to roost and hand-delivered matching funeral urns to the bully that never learns I could’ve swore I heard a chorus rise and fall wishing them so many more unhappy returns. But in every war waged, only kings emerged unscathed.

General CommentIt almost seems like the song is being sung from a person who either has been to war or is at war, and is slowly coming to terms with the fact that the war is wrong and that the only people who it benefits are the people in power who orchestrated it.

General CommentI think this one is about the concept of vengeance/revenge. I mean it's about the Iraq war it seems, and is someone not agreeing with the "mainstream" view of it all and just being all tired and sick of it and everything and sickened of it.

"..to the bully that never learns I could’ve swore I heard a chorus rise and fall wishing them so many more unhappy returns." - Perhaps saying that he starts hating and wishing them (the troops, and people) bad, hoping they'll get killed. Thoughts of hate taking over.

But in every war waged, only kings emerged unscathed." - him thinking that you/we lose ourselves perhaps and lose if we get taken over by vengeance/revenge and same hate and sickness we fight and reject, and the ones guilty or behind it all will still sit at the top "un-damaged". So in short this song is perhaps very "propaGANDHI".

General CommentThe guy in the song is already strongly anti-war. It may be a very personal song.

He's frustrated with the fact that mainstream politicians and media in the USA do not recognize their own crimes - they mourn their own losses, but they don't care about the thousands upon thousands of people they kill abroad.

He feel powerless and hopeless to change the society in which he lives, and is ashamed of himself that he has resorted to thinking about revenge instead of doing something positive.
He ridicules the mainstream media for being cheerleaders for power.
Towards the end of the song, he questions why he should mourn "dead americans" since they are the perpetrators of imperial crimes and deserve no respect.

I think the US army are ultimately our friends in the struggle, not our enemies, since they are swindled and exploited too. Propagandhi probably shares this feeling - listen to their "Die Jungen Maschiert". I can understand why some would feel that way, though.

"The executioner's willing citizens" is taken from the title of the book "Hitler's Willing Executioners". In this case it basically means that american soldiers and even american civilians share responsibility in crimes of their governments.

"Chickens came home to roost" may refer to Malcolm X's comments about the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. It means that, no shit, if you brutalize the world for hundreds of years, some people will push back.

"Arab kids slaughtered" implies the song is specifically about the "war on terror".

General CommentThis song is generally about the media and how they reacted to the September 11th attacks. Chris mentions it in the commentary track for the live from occupied territory dvd. It seems like the song is from his viewpoint, when he says lines like "I'm feeling less hopeful and so much less human as my days are reduced to little more than settling for revenge and wondering whatever happened to the kid that pledged, first do no harm?